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By the time they arrived, word was already spreading that the sniper, along with two additional attackers, had been neutralized. Whether or not there were any more attackers, no one knew.

Along with Gaines and the QRF team, Harvath located the armored Tahoe containing Ambassador Hansen, Prime Minister Stang, and her chief of staff. The lead Norwegian PST agent, a man named Haugen, filled him in on what S?lvi had done.

Harvath felt relieved at hearing she was alive and unharmed. Looking around him at the death and destruction, it was an absolute miracle.

Haugen raised her on the radio and let her know that her husband was on scene. She asked that he bring her a med kit.

Gaines had one of the QRF guys grab the kit out of the Tahoe for him. He then pulled out his backup gun, a Glock 43X, and handed it to Harvath.

“Just in case,” he said.

“Thank you,” Harvath replied, setting his suit jacket aside.

He conducted a press check to make sure a round was chambered and tucked the weapon in the center pocket of his plate carrier. Shouldering the med kit, he then headed for the woods.

It took him a moment to find the path S?lvi had described, but once he was on it, he found her in no time.

Despite all the carnage, she didn’t have a scratch on her. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her like he had never hugged her before. She hugged him right back but cut it off after several seconds. There was still work to be done.

Taking the med kit from him, she introduced him to Bente as she searched for the items she needed.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, crouching down and carefully giving her right hand a soft fist bump.

The female PST agent looked like she had been dragged down eight miles of unpaved highway. She was covered with abrasions and what appeared to be second-degree burns. Something also appeared to be wrong with her left arm, which lay limp in her lap.

Bente had caught a bunch of broken glass in her face and upper torso. Thankfully, none of it had gotten in her eyes. S?lvi did what she could to remove the most uncomfortable pieces. The smaller bits, the ones that had embedded themselves beneath her skin, would have to be addressed at a hospital.

Next, she used the kit’s triangular bandage to fashion a sling and gently positioned it around Bente’s neck and left arm.

The last injury she had to deal with was Bente’s right leg, near her knee. She was in a lot of pain and couldn’t put much weight on it. Cracking a cold pack, S?lvi let Bente place it where it hurt the most and then wrapped it with an Israeli bandage.

As S?lvi tended her injuries, Bente explained to Harvath everything that had happened and how she had been the only person in her SUV to have survived.

Her radio had been damaged, so she couldn’t transmit, but she could receive. That was how she knew S?lvi was coming into the woods to locate and take out the sniper. Bente had decided to provide backup.

“Saving my life in the process,” S?lvi admitted.

Harvath looked at the three corpses. “Have you been able to search them?”

She shook her head.

Standing up, Harvath walked over and went through all their pockets.

“Anything?” S?lvi asked as she finished tending to Bente and zipped back up the medical kit.

“Nothing,” he replied, taking photos of each of them. “No phones. No ID. No pocket litter even.”

“More professionals.”

Harvath nodded. “There seems to be an outbreak of them.”

S?lvi motioned him over and they helped get Bente to her feet.

“Can you make it back to the road?” she asked.

“I think so,” the PST agent responded.

“Put all your weight on Scot,” S?lvi instructed. “He can take it.”

Bente nodded and Harvath let her lean on him as hard as she wanted, grateful that she didn’t need to be carried.

As they neared the edge of the woods, Haugen radioed that the Prime Minister and the Ambassador were being evacuated back to the White House via helicopter and that he was going with them. S?lvi responded that she would link up with them as soon as possible.

Moments later, they heard the presidential helicopter powering up and then, stepping out of the trees, they saw it take off and head for D.C. In the distance, more helos were inbound.

A triage area, with plastic tarps stretched between two large trucks to help provide shade, had been established. They placed Bente there for the time being, sitting her on the ground, and returned to the armored Tahoe.

It was empty. Everyone was gone, except for Sorola, who had removed his suit jacket and used it to cover Miller’s body.

“I’m so sorry,” said S?lvi.

“Thank you,” the FBI agent replied. “He was a good man.”

“My condolences,” replied Harvath.

“Agent Sorola, this is my husband, Scot Harvath.”

The two men shook hands as Sorola asked, “Did you teach her that thing with the penny?”

“What thing?”

“Measuring the treads,” she replied. “Yes, he did.”

“It saved our lives,” the man continued. “That and having the tighter of the two suspensions. I’m sure of it.”

“What I’m sure of is that we had the best driver. It was Suber that saved us. So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Sorola said, the weight of losing Miller evident in his voice.

S?lvi didn’t want to trouble the man any further, but needed to ask, “Did the PM’s chief of staff go with her too?”

“No. He’s here somewhere. He stayed behind to help. I told him I wouldn’t leave without either of you.”

Thanking him, S?lvi retained the med kit and she and Harvath went off in search of others who needed medical attention.

The dead and wounded seemed to be everywhere. Multiple Secret Service vehicles were still on fire.

The sounds of helicopters, ambulances, and fire trucks only got louder as more first responders arrived on scene.

It was a different kind of chaos, but chaos nonetheless.

Eventually they located Henrik—the Prime Minister’s chief of staff. He was holding a water bottle up to the lips of a member from the Dutch delegation, helping her drink.

When the woman had had enough to drink, he sat the bottle next to her and held her hand for a moment, before stepping away to speak with S?lvi.

He pulled a small pad from his pocket and gave her a rundown of everything he had been able to establish regarding the Norwegian delegation’s status.

Seven were dead—four of those being PST agents—and eleven were injured, five of them seriously enough to have been transported out on the presidential helicopter.

The Dutch, according to Henrik, had suffered even greater losses, but other than losing their Prime Minister and their Ambassador to the United States, he couldn’t account for exactly who had been killed in their group.

And, of course, the Secret Service had lost multiple agents, including Miller and the two female agents attached to the Norwegian delegation—Longwell and Del Vecchio.

S?lvi appreciated the man’s levelheadedness, even in the midst of such a horrific attack.

She told him, in Norwegian, that he should be as circumspect as possible, but that the Prime Minister would need to brief Oslo, and any video and still footage he covertly captured would be valuable, especially of the vehicles themselves.

Seeing Gaines nearby, Harvath excused himself and went to give him his gun back.

The man had set up a makeshift command center and was trying to make sure that anyone who was injured had been triaged and all available evidence was being preserved.

In the distance, Harvath could see some of the QRF guys trying to keep people back from a couple of the vehicles that had been struck by RPGs.

Undoubtedly, the BATF was already on their way and would be combing through everything, including the woods where the rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rounds had been fired from.

“Thanks for this,” Harvath said, returning the Glock to Gaines and setting the plate carrier down next to him on the ground.

“I didn’t hear any gunshots, so I’ll take that as good news,” the Secret Service man replied.

“S?lvi and one of the PST agents mopped up the woods.”

“That’s what we heard. Took out the sniper and two other attackers.”

Harvath nodded. “This was a really bad day, Russ.”

“Been a bad week. Speaking of which, the shooting at Ambassador Rogers’s house was all over the news this morning, but it didn’t break until after you called me and asked to meet. Did you have something to do with that?”

This wasn’t how Harvath had planned to have this conversation, but it looked like they were about to have it, so he came right out with it.

“An eight-man team hit Rogers’s house. They knew his alarm code, how to access his security cameras, and what the weakest point of his safe room was.

The only people who knew all of that, besides Rogers, was the Secret Service. ”

Gaines was stunned, obvious both from the look on his face and the tenor of his response. “You think we had something to do with it?”

“Monday they sent two guys after him. Then right after you and I chat, eight guys show up.”

“Jesus Christ, Harvath. You think I was behind that?”

“I think somebody figured out that Rogers had gotten himself protection. And they showed up armed to the teeth, complete with information only you guys have.”

“Well I will tell you right now, it wasn’t me.”

Harvath was a pro at detecting microexpressions—little telltale signs that a subject was lying. But nothing he was getting from Gaines suggested the man was telling him anything but the truth.

The problem, however, was that detecting microexpressions was a skill taught by the Secret Service. He and Gaines had both had the same training, which meant Gaines had had years to perfect covering his up.

Yet he didn’t think Gaines was lying. He believed the man was telling him the truth. But if Gaines hadn’t leaked the information, who had? It was now another question added to Harvath’s very long list.